Little House on the Prairie

One of my favorite shows growing up was Little House on the Prairie. I have a daughter who is so similar to me that it is amazing. I just knew she would love the show also so we finally got the first disc from Netflix and everyone in my family loved it. We found that we really could identify with the show too, after all we are a little house on the prairie. Actually I'm not sure if our house is bigger or if theirs if bigger. However we have electricity and running water. I have to say I love the comforts of our modern age.

Freezing

Every day when we wake up our water if frozen. It takes about 2 hours to get our water running. We have done what we can to try to fix the problem, but it is so cold that the measures we have taken aren't good enough, so we still have to thaw our water lines every day. We are really hoping to get our wood stove into our cabin this weekend so that we have heat in our home more often. We originally thought we could use propane heaters, but we can't leave them on all the time and it is really expensive as we have to refill our tanks a couple of times a week. Hopefully we can get the parts we need for our stove to install it.

Perspective

My children have a lot to teach me. Most recently it was about perspective. My four year old son was racing about our small home that is just under 400 square feet. I asked him to stop running around because the house wasn't big enough to run around in. He rebutted my argument and proclaimed that I had built a big house and there was plenty of room to run around.

I love my son, I have been feeling the weight of living in a small space with my large family, but he reminded me that perspective was valuable to our comfort. To my beautiful little boy, our tiny home is a grand mansion. I love my family.

Gratitude and Thanksgiving

I could use a swift kick in the pants when it comes to being thankful most days. I have a beautiful family and I belong to God's true church. I am so thankful for all the countless blessings that I have in my life. Unfortunately it is easy to get caught in thinking about what I don't have instead of what I do have. I wanted to take a minute to express my gratitude for the sunshine we got on Thanksgiving day. We had very little sunshine leading up to and after Thanksgiving here, but on that day we had enough sunshine for me to use my slow cooker to cook our Thanksgiving meal. I am so very grateful for that blessing. I am also grateful for our tiny house. It is something that I am super grateful for while at the same time I struggle because I would love to live in a bigger house. I am however grateful for all we have been able to do with our tiny house and especially grateful that Heavenly Father has given us the beautiful experiences we have had here.

Freezing temperatures

Well, this week has been freezing temperatures. Last week was cloudy, rainy, and snow. We had been able to get most of our waterline covered, but we still had one exposed area left. Last night we were able to get the last area covered and this morning when we woke up the lines weren't frozen.
Also, we have been able to stay worm in our beds through the night. We still turn on the heater first thing in the morning to try to drive away the cold air, but our cabin is staying warm enough to keep us from freezing. There are still some things that I want to get, like flannel pillowcases. It is amazing to me how big of a difference a fabric on a pillowcase can make on a head during the night. I am so very grateful for the progress we have made, and I hope we can continue to make progress on our cabin and our property through the winter months.

Its raining, Its snowing

We are on day three of overcast skies and rain, and today we had snow also. Our oven is outside because of safety issues and so tonight we were able to see if we like brownies enough to walk back and forth through the rain and snow. I guess we do.
Also we have to ration our power because the skies have been so overcast. Learning to be conservative with our resources is a lesson we all should learn, so I really don't mind my kids learning to be mindful of their resources.
The other thing we have faced over the last three days is everyone in the house together almost all day today. Our house is too small for us to be stuck inside all day everyday. However, we aren't usually all inside everyday all day. For the first time I am thinking that church at 1pm next year will be a good thing because it will break up our Sunday right in the middle with an outing to church.
We still have a long way to go to be ready for winter, and the days are hard with no sun and lots of rain and snow, but I am grateful that our house is almost finished. I am also grateful that we do have power, even if we have to ration our power.
Also, I love my family, even if I am stuck in the house with them. `I have discovered that I will not do well in this house unless I am able to keep it clean because otherwise the house is just too small.

Solar Power

We have been really spoiled up until this week. Yes we have had to adjust to watching our use of power so we don't run out of power, but we pretty much use all our power every day (which is quite a bit for off grid). Well this week has been overcast, so we have had a lot less power for each day. We still have enough power if we ration out our power, but we definitely need to see what changes we can make to get through the winter on cloudy days.

Storage solutions

I am always amazed at how a little more storage can make such a big difference. Today I put up a small shelf with some cup hooks in my kitchen. Such a small thing, but it makes things better. The best part is I was able to make the change without any additional money. I did buy the cup hooks a few weeks ago, but the wood was left over from a project at the beginning of the summer and the shelf brackets were salvaged from a house that was being torn down. I will have to take the shelf down when I do get the money to finish the wall behind it, but for now I have the storage and I am using it.

Tiny houses are not good when everyone is sick.

This week my tiny house got the best of me. We are going through the flu this week, and I still have construction materials in the corners and walls that needs finished. Plus we are really limited on storage which means we are constantly stacking things on top of things. My husband finally has a Saturday that he can hopefully finish some projects, and he has now come down with the flu himself. I worked daily to keep up on the cleaning in hopes that I could find my sanity, and today I lost my sanity and my cool. Luckily for me my husband is understanding and my children are loving and forgiving. I am so grateful for the love and support of my family and despite my frustration today, I still love my little house. I just hope that I can somehow, with everyone sick, (and probably me sick next) I can get some more of my house finished this weekend. Hopefully we can make some progress. And hopefully I don't have any kids throwing up tonight, even though at least 3 people have already told me they might.

Building our Micro House

Building our little house has been a huge learning process. Our little home is under 400 square feet. Everything that goes into it has to be very important. Everything has to have a purpose, even if the purpose it just to make us smile. Sometimes we buy something that doesn't work and we have to relace it because everything has to be efficient. Our funds are limited so we try really hard not to make mistakes that cost money.

Patience and hard work has been our daily task. Every day we look at our resources (including our time) and decide what the goal for the day is. Sometimes the project on the house comes first, and sometimes the laundry comes first. All the animals have to be fed and even that takes a learning curve. For example, we started by putting the chickens food in a dish on the ground. Now we have a container that hangs on the wall. This has saved us a lot of money in food.  The laundry is all washed in our washer and then hung on the clothes line (as long as we have good weather). When we can't use the clothes line or have towels we just send the clothes into town. One dollar in the dryer at the laundry mat will do two loads of laundry. Although we don't want to dry all of our clothes this way its nice to have soft towels and options for the other clothes on bad weather days.

Patience has been really important for the family in several ways. First we all got to use a make shift bathroom for the first 4 months that we were on our homestead. We don't like to go into the details there, but we were happy to have a real bathroom. Curtains in our doorways are slowly being replaced by doors and sheetrock is finally going up on most of the walls. We still have insulation to install in some places, but most of it has been installed and what is left to do will come eventually.
Additionally we all have to have patience with each other. We love to spend time together, but here with so little inside space when the weather is bad we get to spend all of our time together. When the weather is good the kids usually still spend all of their time together also. We tell people that we live in dirt, because we do, but the kids seem to find so much to do with that dirt.

Most of all I am grateful for the opportunity to do this project with my family. My kids are covered in dirt almost every day, but they love it. I am exhausted at the end of the day, but I can almost always look at our little home and say look at what I did today. Even hanging clothes on the clothesline can be satisfying.

Shoe Rack

We keep working on our home as fast as money and time allows. One of my recent projects was a shoe rack I built with my daughter. Now we just need a shoe rack for the front door area. this one was built for my bedroom. I didn't want a pile of shoes on the floor and we don't really have a closet, so I needed a solution that looked nice and fit in the space I had.  The only real solution was to build something myself , and working with my daughter is super fun.

A little more every day!

We got our first wall completed. We have a long ways to go, but every day (except for Sunday) we make progress. I try to build something or do something outside everyday. It feels really awesome to make so much progress.

Our garden starts died when we moved. We didn't have an indoor space for them and the temperature dropped too low for them to survive. We hope to get some seed planted outside soon it might be too cold for them still. We will see how our gardes does or doesn't do this year.  We still have made some great progress (slow but good) in some other areas.

 

 

 

 

 

Our compost area.

Area ready for grass.

 

Area for grass before a few hours of raking and removing rocks.

 

 



Our clothesline finally up and in use.

 

Our chicks are becoming chickens and settling into their chicken coop.



Our Garden Starts

We planted 60 seeds so far this year. The first seeds are starting to poke above the soil. It is so fun to see them grow. This is really a first for us. In the past I have planted seeds outside or bought starts from the store. I haven't really had much luck with the seeds I planted so I mostly stuck with starts from the store, but now we are doing a lot more ourselves. It is a family project and we all work together to make the decisions and plant the seeds.

Cold weather

We got snow today. I am glad we aren't living at the homestead yet. Makes me realize how very important our stove will be. This is the stove that we want to purchase to heat our home. We will be able to use it to heat the home and to cook on while we heat the home.

We are just two weeks away from purchasing our homestead. It will be an entirely new adventure for our family. We will be building our own home, planting our gardens, and raising livestock. We have learned a lot, but this is the first time we will be putting what we have learned into practice. The kids are super excited and I hope their excitement stays through the first couple of adjustment months, especially until the cabin gets built. We still have to get the inspection on the property, but we are hopeful that everything will work out.
We will have a one room cabin for shelter (besides tents) until the cabin gets delivered in May or June. We will be doing most everything outside, but at least we will have some shelter if we need it. We are going into the summer months so it is the best time to be in tents.
We are hoping the small cabin gets finished by the end of April. We need to have the sheetrock up and the floor painted to move in.

Our solar panels

 

Carrie hanging insulation in the little cabin.

"Today I shall behave, as if this is the day I will be remembered."
-Dr. Seuss

I went to a store yesterday and bought 3 shirts. I don't normally buy shirts new at a store if I can help it, but I was buying a particular brand and was looking for something specific. I purchased the three shirts and paid $42 after taxes. I was shocked. Wow, I am use to paying no more than $4 for a shirt and that is if I splurge. I am so very very grateful we have amazing thrift stores that we can shop from so that I can cloth our family for a fraction of the cost.

A penny saved is a penny earned!

Our family loves to save money. We love going to the thrift store and finding great deals on clothes and other items, but mostly on clothes. Today we got some great deals, but I am mostly excited that we got some jeans in great condition for my 3 year old son for $1 a pair. Super excited!!! So I just had to share.

I can see the change in her countenance. She is so much more sure of herself. I love her so much. I am so grateful she has this opportunity for growth at this time in her life.

Today is a new day and I am excited about the future. For those who need a great free website for getting out of debt. I use this website to help me plan paying off debt. It has helped a lot. The last debt that I have is going to take some time (student loans), but I can see how much extra payments affect the pay off date.

I don't have a chest full of gold to pay off my debt, but I have an amazing family and my goal is to get through the next few years of paying off my debt while letting my family know how amazing they are and how much I love them. I don't want to pass on my financial stress to them. That is my goal. How I will accomplish that is still a work in progress.

I have decided that I feel like this yo yo when it comes to my diet and my debt. I don't seem to be making any progress or going anywhere. Both my debt and my extra weight seem to just hang around. Sometimes they go up and down, but that is just about all they do. I think I need to figure out why I can't seem to make the progress I would like to make if I hope to make any real progress.

Goal update

This month we are not making the progress that we want to on our student loans, however we are paying with cash for 3 kids to be in college classes at community colleges. My sister laughed and joked with me saying, "I hope we pay off our college before I start paying on my kids college." I love my sister she helps keep things fun for me. I guess it would be nice if I had my college paid off first, but at least we are starting a new legacy here of paying for school without going into debt. I am teaching my children that debt is to be avoided whenever it is possible, so even though I am off to a late start with my financial goals I am moving forward avoiding debt.

I had to admit I am behind with learning new recipes too so today I need to break out the beans and try a new bean recipe.

Today may be a Dave Ramsey day. I might need to listen to his show for a few hours to get on fire again about getting rid of our debt.

Last week was a week of new beginnings. We took our oldest daughter to college and signed up our oldest son for classes at the local community college. Our second daughter was already signed up for classes. This means that our three oldest children will all be taking classes this semester at a college. The rest of the kids will continue to homeschool with me. I am so grateful that we continue to be blessed by a loving Father in Heaven who has given us so much.

I have asked my children to make this year a year of goals. Yesterday we learned how to make white bean dip. Learning how to make more foods with food storage items is a big goal for our family. We got the recipe from here.